Culture Shift With A Deadly Destination

On April 13, 1996 an organization called Friends Being Friends hosted an event as part of an AIDS benefit in the federally owned Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in the nation's capital. What occurred, however, will more likely spread AIDS than alleviate it. Eyewitnesses to the proceedings observed numerous illegal activities, including nudity, same-sex intercourse, drug dealing and drug use.

Marc Morano, who attended the event (and videotaped portions of it) for the Family Research Council, saw an act of sodomy performed openly just off the dance floor in the main auditorium area. The men's room stalls were used for sexual encounters through the night, and public urination outside the building were common. Sexual liaisons were so rampant outside that security guards were forced to cordon off sections of the grounds.

The orgy at the Mellon Auditorium was one of several functions held as part of a Cherry Jubilee Weekend. The program was advertised as a benefit for the Whitman Walker Clinic and Food and Friends, which offer services to people with AIDS. The next morning, another Cherry Jubilee event, the Farewell Brunch was held in the Rayburn House Office Building, courtesy of openly gay Rep. Steve Gunderson, Wisconsin Republican. Sponsors of the weekend included American Airlines, Snapple Beverages, Starbucks coffees and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.

This was not the first time the Mellon Auditorium has hosted a homosexual freeforall. During the 1993 gay march on Washington, it was used for the "National S/M Leather Fetish Conference, featuring leather-clad "masters" and near naked "submissives" in chains. It also showcased graphic photos of anatomical feats too grotesque to mention in a newspaper.

Should this come as a shock? We are, after all, allowing homosexuality (sometimes in the guise of disease prevention) to be taught to American children in public schools, beginning at a very tender age. While the government prohibits religious expression in schools, and evidently does a poor job teaching the basis of reading, writing, math and history, it spends millions on contraceptive programs and sex "education." Posing as "values neutral," these programs encourage amoral attitudes and self gratification. When higher pregnancy and disease rates inevitably result, bureaucrats and "experts" call for more of the same.

Wherever the legislative or executive branches of the government fail sufficiently to promote unmarried sex and homosexuality, the courts push them along. Courts have enjoined referenda prohibiting privileged status for homosexuals in several states. In Hawaii, a court case could overturn the laws of all 49 states by legalizing homosexual "marriages." A disturbing ruling in California went against a woman who wished, on religious grounds, to refuse to rent living quarters to a homosexual couple.

This agenda is being advanced in the name of tolerance and acceptance, but it brooks no opposing views. Gay activists view main stream values and norms intrinsically oppressive, and therefore desire the overthrow of a society based on them. The "love" that once "dared not speak its "name" is now pounding down America's doors, showing how twisted our ideal of freedom has become.

In his detailed and well documented book "The Family Under Siege," George Grant cites a list of gay demands from the Advocate, the nation's most prestigious gay magazine. Those include: endorsement of homosexuality by all religions and the rewriting or expurgation of Scriptures; gay marriage or the abolition of marriage; indoctrination of the young in homosexual behavior; the end of all discrimination against homosexuals, and the expurgation of "ugly and ignorant homophobia" among the aged and backward who cling to the old ways. These goals are to be enforced through "heavy punishments" and "public humiliation."

The Advocate article concludes with this challenge: "If all these things do not come to pass quickly, we will subject Orthodox Jews and Christians to the most sustained hatred and vilification in recent memory. We have captured the liberal establishment and the press. We have already beaten you on a number of battlefields...surrender now."

This is not an idle threat or an isolated phenomenon. This agenda is just part of a wider cultural transformation that includes abortion, infanticide, suicide and euthanasia. If completed, the result will be a country unrecognizable to the Framers of our Constitution. No civilization can long sustain widespread depravity. If we hope to bequeath an intact nation to our children, every able citizen must fight to "turn back the clock" on the coming culture of death -- before it is late.